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Establishing gridlines on your Microsoft Excel chart produces horizontal or vertical lines that help line up plots with the left or bottom scale. Two types of gridlines are offered. Major gridlines offer only the milestone values, such as 100, 200 and 300. Minor gridlines use smaller denominations to produce a finer mesh of gridlines. You may also use both major and minor gridlines simultaneously, which results in a combination of darker major lines and lighter minor lines.

1. Open your spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.

2. Click anywhere on the chart to select it. This makes the Design, Layout and Format tabs appear at the top of the Excel window.

3. Click the "Layout" tab.

4. Click "Gridlines" from the Axes group and point to "Primary Horizontal Gridlines" or "Primary Vertical Gridlines," depending on which gridlines you need. If you want both, simply perform this procedure for both options.

5. Click "Major Gridlines," "Minor Gridlines" or "Major & Minor Gridlines" from the drop-down menu, depending on which gridlines you want. The gridlines automatically appear after making your selection.